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Weak Cab Needs A Lift

Hi... I just subscribed to this newsgroup today. Many posts are very interesting.

QUICK BACKGROUND I have about 50 gallons of Red Cabernet wine that is bulk aging. Several of the grapes that this wine was made from were not fully rippened. It fact, several were downright 'green' At the time of the crushing/destemming, my winegroup buddies and I were not versed in how you can extract more color, tanning, et al, during primary fermentation. As a result, the extraction colour was very poor. In fact, the cab has the color, consistency and flavour of a very pale blush. My wife makes stronger fruit juice for our kids from frozen concentrate than this years batch of Cab.

In addition to this, I tend to keep my SO2 levels, in all of my wines. I do this because my wife is quite allergic to any sulfa medications. Yes... I KNOW the consequences of not using sufficient Campden tablets!

Question:

Another winemaking buddy suggested that I purchase some grape concentrate in a commercial wine kit and add it to my pathetically weak Cab. In theory this sounds fine but my Cab has already been oaked for several months, undergone Melolactic fermentation, finned, and cold stabilized. It is now just bulk aging. By adding this new concentrate into my Cab, am I not risking that fermentation will once again occur? While I have not tested my SO2 levels, I know that they would be low.

Can anyone tell me what the possible benefits as well as risks are? Remember, I tend to underuse sulfite because of my wife's allergies, but I am extremely conscious about equipment sterilization/contaminants.

If I do introduce the concentrate, what would be the recommended amounts?

All thoughts are welcome.

Paddy-O (great newsgroup!)

Reply to
Paddy-O
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If you add concentrate without restarting fermentation you are going to end up with a low alcohol sweet wine. If this is what you want, fine. If you try to restart fermentation you are going back to time zero as far as bulk aging and with low SO2 this may not be good as it will be a long time before it is aged again.

You could make another wine and blend it but again it would be a long time before it is ready and if you make a good wine, it is never a good idea to blend a good wine with a bad. You just end up with more bad.

If it is not too bad you might blend it with some fruit juice and make something of the fruit cooler type like the Island Mist wines. If you do this and bottle it you are going to have trouble with protecting against restarting fermentation without SO2. You could just do it at the time you drink it.

I do not filter my wines but if you are no using SO2 you may want to get a good filter that will remove all the yeast and then adjust what I have said above accordingly.

Ray

Reply to
Ray

Hi Ray...

I agree... I don't like blending good wine with bad wine. It just makes for a lot of 'tolerable' wine. My preference would be to add a little concentrate and put it more SO2 (2-3 Campden tablets per 23L Carboy ) to prevent further fermentation. I fully realize that regardless of how much 'doctoring', this Cab is never going to be something I will serve to my friends. I have 8 other carboys of very good wine (2 are exceptional) that is bulk aging as well.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Pat (Paddy-O)

Ray wrote:

Reply to
Paddy-O

Actually I serve a lot of my mediocre wine to friends and the rave about it and ask for more. I am afraid if I served my good wine to them they would educate their palate and I would have no outlet for my mediocre wine. Then there are the friends who know the difference.

I don't serve bad wine to anyone. I am not being mean, just practical.

Ray

Reply to
Ray

Paddy,

If it weren't such a large batch, I'd recommend either writing it off to experience, or holding on to it to blend with an overpowering wine in the future. As it is though, I'm sure you have a lot of emotional & financial investment in this batch, so those options are out. A question: How does it all taste, regardless of the color? Could you live with it if you added some tannin, from a commercial grape source, and maybe a bit more toasty oak? This still wouldn't equal the extended extraction, but it might produce something closer to what you want. You have enough to experiment with a small batch or two.

Also, if your wife is allergic to SULFONAMIDE (sulfa) drugs, that's not the same as being allergic to SULFITES. They are two very different classes of chemicals. See this link e.g.

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Do a Goodle search. True sulfite allergies are really rare, and sufferers can't eat dried fruit,or at salad bars, etc because of the sulfites there.I'm sure her sulfa drug is serious, but I doubt it has any bearing on the wines she drinks.

HTH, Mike MTM (another Mick, literally!)

Reply to
MikeMTM

I wonder what the acid levels are like since the cab grapes were not fully ripe?

Joe

Reply to
Joe Ae

Red wine vinegar might be an option. Just get some mother culture at your favorite supplier. It might make for nice gifts for those who don't drink wine.

Reply to
Paul E. Lehmann

You could sweeten it up with some concentrate and make some wine cooler type beverage out of it. Split the batch and sweeten with different fruit concentrate to have different flavours. If you had beer kegging equipment, it'd be a sinch to carbonate it and serve something akin to smirnoff ice.

Reply to
Charles H

If it is legal where you live, you might try freeze-distilling a portion of the cab, then adding it back to the mail batch. This will intensify everything in your wine that is not water. Perform and acid/pH test afterwards and adjust accordingly.

You might also try adding grape skins to your batch. I freeze some of my pomice and use it for various "experiments" throughout the year. If you don't do the same, you might try pressing some store-bought grapes and using the pressed skins. Try this on a 1 gal batch and see how it goes.

Good Luck, David

Reply to
David D.

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